While Via controls less than 1 percent of the worldwide x86 market, its line
of low-watt, low-cost processors seems tailor-made for a new type of notebook
market that doesn't require chips with the latest and greatest clock speeds and
that sell for premium prices.

For its Mini-Note PC, HP tapped Via's C7-M ultralow-volt processor, which
offers a top clock speed of 1.6GHz and works within a power envelope of 3.5
watts. Earlier in 2008, Via announced a new series of chips built on new
microarchitecture, called Isaiah, which is geared toward ultramobile PCs and
other low-cost notebooks.
For now, Via represents a small challenge to Intel, which announced that its
Atom processors for MIDs (mobile Internet devices) are ready and that new
processors for what it calls "netbooks" are on the way. The Intel
platform is expected to keep these notebooks
between $250 and $300, which is a price range that has appeal in the
education market as well as with some small businesses or companies looking for
secondary laptops that employees can take on the road.
Intel estimated that this market could be worth about $10 billion, and it's
determined to make a lot of noise. At this point, Advanced Micro Devices,
Intel's main rival in the mainstream notebooks market, has not yet announced a
specific processor with the same sort of capabilities, although it is working
on several products that could make it competitive.
Although some believe the low-cost market could be huge, IDC
said it believes that Intel and Via are targeting a market that will ship less
than 10 million units by 2012.
Dean McCarron, an
analyst with Mercury Research, said while Via cannot compete with Intel in terms
of sheer volume and marketing muscle, the emerging market of low-cost PCs and
ultramobile PCs plays to the company's strengths, namely low-cost chips with
decent performance that do not use large amounts of power. The chips also fit
well in small form factors.